Sorry if my chapter alerts keep going out multiple times. I have no idea why, except that I always have a hard time uploading chapters. I know this fic is different from my usual dark style of writing, but I hope y'all are enjoying it anyways! Thanks for the reviews. I do read them & I love them.
CHAPTER 8 Truth Hurts
When Ginny climbed from her bed at 8 o'clock the next morning and tried to take a step, she found that her thighs were unbelievably sore.
She heard giggles from Zoë's bed as she grimaced, and looked up to see her friend watching her.
Zoë and Bianca had been sleeping in her bed when she returned. She hadn't noticed and simply climbed into the bed, causing all three of them to start shrieking.
"We wanted to hear all the dirty details," Bianca smiled as she rubbed the sleep her eyes. "We're waiting for you."
"No purple spots, I see," Zoë yawned. "So tell us all about it."
They had stayed up until nearly 3 a.m., discussing it and dragging every detail out of Ginny, particularly those relating to a naked Draco.
"Is he big?" Zoë had demanded.
"Dunno," she shrugged with a giggle. "I don't really have anything to compare him to!"
"Well guess. Show us."
"Um, like this?" Ginny held her hands apart.
Even in the dark, Ginny was able to see the wicked smile that had lit her friend's face.
"Sore much?" Zoë asked as Ginny stood to her feet.
"Yes," she groaned.
"Well, take a hot shower, then we'll swipe some of Helena's virgin cream for you," she suggested.
"Virgin cream?"
Zoë nodded. "We were bored after you left. So we decided to entertain ourselves, and we found Madam Minerva's Sore Limb Cream in a certain girl's trunk."
"Madam Minerva?"
Bianca giggled, joining them. "We wondered the same thing."
"But the jar says it's great for aches and pains related to a damsel's bedroom ailments," Zoë finished.
After the shower and the cream, Ginny's legs felt much better. She spent the rest of the time in the bathroom, trying on clothes and experimenting with cosmetics charms until she felt she had found the perfect combination of sexy but not tarty.
"I'm going to get Draco," she told her two friends. "I'll meet you out front."
She very nearly skipped down the staircases to Draco's room. She was happy, and excited, and filled with some sort of feeling she couldn't quite name, but if she had to, absolutely had to as if her life depended on it, she would have said that maybe, just possibly, she was in love.
She ignored the looks from a group of young Slytherins, and whispered the password to Draco's door and let herself in. Draco was sitting in his chair, still dressed only in his boxers and staring over a full cup of tea.
"Are you alright?" she asked, quickly shutting the door.
He nodded. "I need to tell you something before we go to Hogsmead."
"What?" Ginny felt her insides shifting. He looked paler than usual, and his falt, emotionless tone wasn't comforting.
He sucked in a deep breath. "You know that girl who's working for Madam Rosmerta? Her niece?"
Ginny nodded. The girl was just a year or two older than her, but she wasn't nice at all. Madam Rosmerta admitted she had taken her in for a few months as a family favor. Nearly everyone in Hogwarts was looking forward to her departure.
"She, um, she says, uh, that, um, she says that she's pregnant."
His words didn't penetrate Ginny's thoughts. "I don't . . . understand."
"She says . . . it's mine."
Ginny took a step backwards. "Yours?" It didn't make sense. What was he going on about? Why would she say that?
"It's not. I mean, it can't be. I was . . . safe. More than safe."
Ginny literally felt the force of his words as they drove into her chest. "What?"
"I'm sorry, I am. I had to tell you before we went to town. I mean, she's such a bint and I knew she'd say something to you, so I had to tell you . . ."
"But . . . how?" Tears were rising rapidly in the corner of Ginny's eyes.
"I'm sorry." Draco kept staring down at his cold tea, refusing to look at her.
Ginny felt as if the room was going to close in on her. "How far, how far along is . . . she?"
"She says . . . a month and a half."
Ginny felt the wall against her back as she stumbled into it. "But that's when . . ." When I gave you my virginity, her mind screamed.
"I'm sorry, Gin. I was out of my mind. I just wanted a drink and I went to town. She's nothing to me. You, you're everything. I love you, Gin, and I'm sorry." For the first time since she had entered the room, he looked up at her. "I'm sorry."
He loves me. Oh gods, he said he loves me. Ginny shook her head, sorrow rolling down her face. "Go to her. If she has your child, she needs you more than I do."
"No!" Draco snapped. "Are you listening? She has to be lying! She can't be-"
"It doesn't matter," Ginny whispered, choking on the bitterness of her tears. "I can't know . . . that and stay with you."
Draco stood from his chair as Ginny pulled the door open. She took off into the hallway, blinded by her tears and deafened as she heard Draco's words from behind her. "Ginny! No! Come back!"
She crashed straight into Zoë and Bianca on the second floor staircase.
"Ginny!" Zoë grabbed her shoulders. "What's wrong?"
"Let go," she begged, her voice low and pleading. "Please."
"What happened?" Bianca gasped, futilely wiping at her tears.
"Nothing. I don't want to talk about it," she sobbed. "I'm not going to town!"
"Ginny!" Draco's voice reached her ears. "Wait!"
"Oh my gods," Zoë gasped. "Professor Malfoy's in his boxer shorts."
Ginny peaked over her shoulder, and through her tears, she could see him, his face freeze, as if he suddenly realized he had forgotten his clothes, and he quickly began to fumble for the zipper of his robes. "Make him go away," Ginny whispered to her friends.
"She doesn't want to see you," Bianca told him coldly as he struggled to zip up his robes. They helped Ginny up the stairs and into her bed, where she refused to come out, refused to speak, refused to eat.
Ginny barely recalled the tear filled journey back to her room, but she did remember the look on Draco's face while he struggled to put his robes on. A mix of sorrow and anger like she had never seen.
Zoë and Bianca leaned over her, begging her to tell them what happened, but Ginny buried her face under her pillow and begged them to go. "Please," she asked, her voice hoarse and raspy, "just go to Hogsmead. I just want to be alone."
Shortly after lunch they relented, and Ginny was left alone with her tears and thoughts. Her brain had gone into over drive, trying to comprehend Draco's words, and piece some sort of logical explanation for his reactions, but she could come up with nothing. As far as she could tell, he had gone to Hogsmead that very night they first attempted to have sex and ended up sleeping with Madam Rosmerta's bitch of a niece. So he was probably drunk. So she probably came onto him. So she had just run out of his room, thinking he was a full-fledged Death Eater. So what? she asked herself. So what? He probably was mad at her, or hurt or confused, but that didn't mean he should go sleep with someone else.
She briefly considered smothering herself with a pillow.
There was a numbness, an emptiness in the very center of Ginny's chest. It made it difficult to breathe, to think.
Oh gods, this pain . . . it's too much.
Draco said he loved her. I love him. Loved him. Ginny shook her head. No matter what she felt or thought she felt, she couldn't deal with this. What if the bitch was pregnant? And what if it was Draco's? Then that's the end. She rubbed her eyes. No, it's already the end. She pulled the curtains tight around her bed and lit up her galaxy glass, crying into her pillow until she fell asleep.
When Ginny woke, she was disoriented. It was dark still, and she was surrounded by stars, stars as far as she could see. And she could hear voices; deep, gravelly, unreal voices speaking, their words coming from all around her.
"Leave her be, sister. I will take her now."
"But this is mine, this is my realm."
"And now I will take her to mine."
Ginny fell back into sleep and dreamed about a boy with fine blond hair and silver eyes who made her laugh and cry. Their hands were tied together with a long silver cord that couldn't be broken, but she was far away from him. The distance between them felt immeasurable, despite the binding cord. She reached out to touch him, but he changed. His hair became dark and his eyes black, and next to him stood a tall, hooded figure, holding a book in his hands.
"Who are you?" Ginny asked.
"It matters none," the dark haired man told her. "I gave you what you needed."
When Ginny woke, the last wisps of the dream faded from her. Zoë and Bianca were at the foot of her bed, picking out stars and planets.
"How do you feel?" Zoë asked when she saw Ginny sit up.
"Bleh," Ginny grunted, rubbing her eyes.
"We brought you this," Bianca told her, holding out a large box of Honeyduke's finest chocolates.
"Chocolates always make you feel better," Zoë added, helping herself.
"I don't want to feel better," Ginny muttered. "I want someone to erase my memory."
Her two best friends exchanged glances.
"That bad?" Bianca asked quietly.
Ginny nodded, and picked up a toffee candy. "Did he go to Hogsmead?"
"No. I think he stood out by the fat lady, hoping you'd reappear," Zoë told her.
"Really?" She put the chocolate in her mouth.
"That's where he was when we left. He asked about you, but we ignored him. Well, I did. Zoë told him to sod off. And to fuck himself. Probably gonna lose points for that," Bianca added.
"You ready to tell us what's going on?" Zoë asked, trying to catch a star in her hand.
"Madam Rosmerta's niece said she's pregnant by him." Ginny helped herself to another chocolate. She felt strangely better, as if something had happened to prove to her that this really wasn't the end of the world, something she couldn't even begin to place.
Zoë and Bianca were silent.
"That first night we, um, tried to, uh, have sex, we kind of got in a fight. He went to Hogsmead, got drunk, blah, blah, blah." She popped a third chocolate in her mouth.
"Oh, oh Ginny!" Bianca's hand flew to her mouth.
"That fucking arse!" Zoë exploded. "How could he do that?"
"He just told you?" Bianca asked.
Ginny nodded calmly, chewing her candy. "It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does!" Zoë nearly shouted. "I'm going to kill him!"
Ginny shook her head. "I just want to forget about him." Even as the words left her lips, she knew she wouldn't, possibly couldn't. An image of a silver cord flashed through her mind, confusing her more.
***
Draco wasn't at breakfast Monday morning, and Ginny was only slightly relieved. The news of Professor Malfoy running down the halls in his boxers and an open robe spread like wildfire and every student swore up and down that they saw it, even though he only passed four people before he got his robes zipped. This of course meant that everyone was gossiping about Ginny and Draco and she hated it.
When he came into class, her stomach twisted nervously, but she didn't even look at him. She just wrote down the instructions he barked at them, and began working on the potion with Colin. She could feel his eyes burning into her skull, and she could feel the curious stares of the other students. Colin said nothing, and she assumed Bianca or Zoë had already filled him in.
It was the longest two hours Ginny had ever experienced. Draco snapped at everyone, taking points for any slight mishap. Her only relief was when Helena and Gable got in a fight and she splashed the advanced swelling potion in his face and screamed, "Now your head will match your ego!" before storming out of class. Draco took away points from her, points from Gable, took more points because the potion didn't even work - it just turned his skin rather speckled, and then took points from the laughing students. Ginny bowed her head over her desk and willed her tears not to fall.
At the end of class, Ginny let Colin take their beaker to Draco's desk, while she stood safely huddled between Luna, Zoë, and Bianca, and when the bell rang, she dashed out of class.
As much as she wanted to lie in bed and cry - which was what she did when the lights went off at night - Ginny forced herself to her classes, to meals, and spent all her spare time studying with Bianca and Colin, and usually Zoë. She refused to look at Draco, no matter how fiercely she could feel his eyes blazing into her. She went to Quidditch practice each week, and worked with Madam Hooch three times a week, training for the open Quidditch tryouts that would be held in the summer.
"There are a couple of scouts coming to your next match," Madam Hooch told her one afternoon. It was a rather warm day for the end of February, and Ginny had decided to push back her homework to take advantage of the weather.
"Scouts?" she repeated, sliding off her broom.
"That's right. One from Puddlemere, one from the Canons, and one from Haywood Unions."
"Scouts?"
"That's what I said."
Ginny could barely believe it. "How do they know about me?"
"Well, you're the best Chaser this school's had in quite some time. Word gets around."
"What's gonna happen?"
Madam Hooch shrugged. "That depends on you. If they like you, they'll offer you some sort of contracts, and if you like them, you can accept. If not, you can see what happens this summer."
"So . . . I can quit worrying about my N.E.W.T.s?"
"I don't think you were too worried about them in the first place, were you?"
"Well, no. Not really."
"You only need two N.E.W.T.s in any subject to be eligible for professional Quidditch."
That night, Ginny slept a little better than she had in the past two weeks.
Draco's class was still horrible. He was still in a furious mood, continually docking points, and assigning the most complicated potions he could. He handed all of Ginny's papers back with a large red O at the top and nothing else. She would force herself to mutter "Thank you Professor Malfoy." In the month since their falling out, three students had left his class in tears, vowing never to return. Professor Snape was a relaxing treat compared to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I may have said this before, but of course, the people in Ginny's dreams are Lord Morpheus & his sister Despair. They belong to Neil Gaiman, I am just fascinated by them. In "reality" they do not really interfere with people like this, I just thought I'd tweak them to my own enjoyment!
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